FanNation - The Republic of Sport

First off congratulations Jim Rice and Ricky Henderson, what an honor it is especially in baseball to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, how the hell was Ricky not unanimous and what is with this thing of purposely not voting for a guy in his first year of eligibility . My guess is that Andre Dawson will surely get in next year. It seems like its always brought, the talk about Mark McGwire and other players of the steroids era, Pete Rose and betting on baseball do any of them deserve to get in?????????.. It goes on and on, will we ever forgive the kids of the 90???s that did such things and let them in? Should we? One thing we learned last year about this whole era issue is that it can depend on how that player handles the exposure, Andy Pettite came right out and said yea I did that I???m sorry, Roger Clemens well Roger is still making headlines, and has now been exposed for being quite the disturbed man, but could Clemens image have been saved had he simply admitted, by all accounts it was late in his career anyway right? Clemens may be the best pitcher of all time, I don???t think so but I could see how you could make a case for him, but will he get into the Hall of Fame after the circus he started? Would he have still been a lock had he simply gone quiet? People tend to get harsher judgment when they lie about things that???s why Sammy never had a chance and McGwire lost votes this year. I will say this Pete Rose should get into the Hall before any player that used steroids, I have never made up my mind on weather or not I would vote for people who used steroids if I voted, but I know that Pete has the ???all natural stats??? required to get in betting aside. Lastly I want to sound off on Bud Selig, how does the Bud get a hall pass? He presided over the era for how many years and then comes out as the man who cleaned it up? When a company screws up who do you look at? The owner the CEO the guy running the show, of course Bud had to know something was up and was being quiet about it, performance enhancing drugs were a part of the baseball culture of the time, did Bud just miss that? Stats were crazy inflated money was being made by the truck load and Bud was also seeing the green, we are so hard on the kids but what about the permissive father who simply just watched until others raised eyebrows? It???s a joke how clean Selig has come off, how secure he is in his job, you don???t preside over that era and come out clean you just cant, Buds to blame here, I don???t think this kind of huge problem would have happened under Paul Tagliabue or Roger Goodell or David Stern for that matter, sure football and basketball have had some issues but nothing as big as the Steroids era. Bud derserves a lot more of the blame than he ever got.